Pepperony Sunshine
by Fault
Summary: Cute pieces of fluff about Tony and Pepper, where Tony makes the best things when it's for Pepper, because she's his sunshine, and for the purposes of these stories, Tony Stark is solar powered.
1. Chapter 1: Music Box

Pepperony Inventor-fic.

Pepper Potts' heels clicked over the floor of Tony Stark's cliff-side mansion, she was dressed precisely and flatteringly in professional attire.

"Friday? Is Tony still in the Workshop?" She put in a pair of discreet gold earrings.

"Yes Ms Potts." The voice said smoothly.

"Get him out."

"Yes Ms Potts."

Pepper trusted the sophistication of the AI more with every day. Sure enough, moments later she heard Tony's feet bounding up the stairs.

"Tony, we're going to be late." She called sternly.

"I know, I'm sorry." Tony Stark bounded up to her like a naughty puppy, tearing the dust mask down off his face. His hair was full of unnamed dusts that twinkled like glitter.

"I made you something" He smiled, radiating an intense enthusiasm that Pepper knew from experience was irrepressible.

Not breaking eye contact he placed a metal contraption in her hand and kissed her fingertips, closing her fingers over it. Pepper sighed, charmed, but determined to get him to focus.

"I need you at a meeting in half an hour. What...?" She held up her hand.

"Please, just a minute. I promise I'll be good after I show you this... good for me" He added, at her disbelieving look.

She finally took a good look at the complicated piece of metal in her hands. It looked like a music box "What is this?"

"Just a little something. Hold it like so" He curled the fingers of one hand onto the metal base plate "...and touch here." There was a tiny heart shaped metal pad.

"It looks like an electric circuit, it this going to zap me?" She asked, half fascinated, half worried. Tony had form, and there were wires.

"No.. well yes, but not so as you'd notice." His eyes looked at her imploringly.

"Tony." She said warningly.

"Please, I'm very proud of it."

"Well ok..." More puppy dog eyes. "Ok!" She smiled, in spite of herself.

Tony curled himself around behind her dexterously, swinging her into the morning sunlight like a dancer. "Now hold it up to the light, and close the circuit."

Pepper held it up, sunlight refracting through the crystal and splitting into a vivid rainbow.

"It's lovely." She said, with a little smile.

"Now touch that little heart." Tony enthused. She did. The machine came to life.

A tiny motor whirred, setting the whole contraption into motion. A spindle turned, holes in it flashing beams of the split sunlight upon tiny sensors. In time with the flashing, a little melodic hum of a sound came out of the tiny speaker.

"Oh Tony." Pepper gasped at the delicate sounds coming from the little machine as she recognised the tune.

The melody rising in a familiar progression, Pepper mentally sang the lyrics along with it, _you are my sunshine, my only sunshine._

"Oh Tony, it's beautiful." She let it go to look at him. He closed her finger over it again, looking into her eyes.

 _You make me happy, when skies are grey..._

"Did I say it's solar power? It's powered by that _tiny_ little patch of solar film. I know how much you like solar power."

 _You'll never know dear, how much I love you._

"I do." She touched his cheek and gave his a sweet kiss.

Pepper smiled at the music box, bubbling with warm feelings of love and pride, then looked at Tony's excited face. "Tell me more as you get ready. Come on, time to shower."

Obviously pleased with her reaction, Tony started tech babbling in the most charming way as he walked backwards towards the shower, undressing as he went. "That film is a proof of concept for something new I'm working on." He tossed his safety goggles and dust mask aside.

"It uses multiple layers of sensitive material, each optimised for a different wavelength of sunlight..." He said, removing his shoes and socks.

".. Including green." His eyebrow cocked, bragging, as he jogged up the stairs playfully.

"With this film and a micro-bead coating, you can get conversion rates up around 35, maybe 40%. In a 2mm thick film..." His shirt dropped from his outstretched hand. Pepper followed, retrieving his abandoned clothing.

"It's about 200gsm and you can apply it to walls like it was a _poster_ , put a weather coat on it and boom it's both wash and wear and plug and play."

His pants were kicked towards her with a little flourish.

"I'd go into more detailed specs, but it gets super technical. I'd prefer just to kiss you."

During the kiss Pepper managed to deftly manoeuvre him into the shower. He looked mock betrayed when she broke the kiss and turned the water on.

As he started scrubbing, she took a closer look at the tiny patch of solar film.

"Tony, this is a real breakthrough... This isn't just going to revolutionise Stark industries, this could power cities.."

"Yup. I impressed myself with this one." His voice echoed out to her.

"You've impressed me too. I'm not even annoyed how late we're going to be. So why did you go to the trouble of the little heart touch pad and that song, if it's just a proof of concept?"

"I told you, I made it for you. When you touch the base, and the heart... you carry the modulating current created by the clockwork spindle through your body." Splashing noises "Your skin changes the signal a little, so when it comes back to the machine and gets played as it's gentler, sweeter."

"It can't work without you. So I thought it would be romantic present on more than one level, because not only are you my sunshine, I need you to touch my heart to keep me grounded." He reached a hand out to touch the ribs over her heart.

"And you complete me..." He trailed off as he caught sight of her truly touched expression.

"Or, since completing me isn't the healthiest relationship sentiment, I could just say that you electrify me and modulate my genius to create things of true beauty." He smirked.

"Lose the egotism in that sentence, and it would be truly lovely compliment." She said sarcastically, laughing.

"See what I mean? I'm right aren't I?" Pepper pecked him on the cheek.

"You are. Now get dressed." She pushed him gently but firmly towards his closet.

"I love you." He called over his shoulder, meeting her eyes.

"I love you too."

"You're my sunshine too." She said quietly in absolute wonder, and touched the little button again, listening to the song play out.

I like techno-babble, so sue me ;).


	2. Chapter 2: Solar world

Sunshine part two: solar Tony inventorfic

Pepper pads downstairs into Tony's workshop. Friday lets her in without fuss. Tony is modelling

some sort of chemical reaction, atomic values floating around the air, scalable values float in a table nearby, inscrutable numbers rolling up and down: T +74563+ 10 10 526.

"What are you up to down here?" Pepper isn't usually comfortable in the workshop. Distinguishing the delicate from the dangerous wasn't always easy, and the contents were ever changing.

"I'm working on that solar film I showed you a while back." He gestures to what looked oddly like a row of developing photographs.

"The music box one?" She asks. Tony nods.

"The very same." He says, showing her the film under microscope. Microscopic wires weave patterns through a glittering matrix.

"Your first reaction was that it could power cities... and it could, but not yet."

"No?" She asks. He holds up a bar of milled titanium, and another of vanadium.

"Some of those layers are either very energy intensive to make, made of very expensive materials, or both. I'm going to have to make a lot of adjustments, and it will sacrifice on electrical conversion a little, but your wish is my command." He bows with a flourish.

"Really? I had no idea. Why are you working on this personally? I thought arc reactors were your thing."

"Because, it's for you." He smiles indulgently.

"I'm not sure I understand. The mansion already has it's own arc reactor. You're not going to be sticking this on the roof instead are you?" She looks around at the different films.

"I might for publicity. Look, I really like arc reactors. I mean, they're brilliant in every sense of the word. And I hold exclusive patent on them." He brags. "But you're not comfortable around them. Understandably, to be honest, given your experience with them. So I'm working with a technology you do trust. Renewable, unlimited, and all the nuclear reactions involved happen a nice safe 150 million kilometres distant." He says, pointing at the Sun.

"When you put it that way. Yes, there are very good reasons why I prefer solar power to arc reactors." She puts the lens back on a handy work-top.

"You're not the only one who feels that way. And powering cities is important. A lot of people live in cities. All of my favourite comforts require cities, and power. I may be selfish with some of my cooler tech, but I'm not going to keep the world waiting for cheap, safe, plentiful, sustainable power in order to feed my ego."

"Everything needs power. Transport, electricity. Constructing durable infrastructure for water purification and distribution, garbage disposal. Internet servers."

Friday starts displaying distribution grids and battery schematics, webs of interconnected solar power systems.

"They can all be solar powered, if I can make it efficient enough, and make it out of readily available materials. And make it at a competitive price." He shrugs.

"You're serious about this whole change the world thing aren't you?" Pepper marvels.

"I guess I am. What's so surprising, I've saved the world, changing it isn't so weird is it?"

"I guess not." She smiles.

"So, we have to make this scalable." He hugs her.

"We?" She cranes her neck to look into his eyes.

"Well... you run Stark Industries, I'm just your pet mad scientist. I don't have the resources for this kind of production personally. So, pretty please, can we set up a factory? Get this mass produced?" He gestures at the floating display of miscellaneous infrastructure.

"I'll look into it." Pepper says evenly.

"How is this not an automatic yes?" Tony gapes.

"Because you're brilliant, not infallible. I'm going to do due diligence on this. I'm sure we'll have it up and running soon enough, ok? But if we're going to power the world, we need a good business model to get it done."

"You are very sexy when you're professional, you know that? I'm not trying to belittle your acumen as a CEO, I simply find you sexy for a lot of reasons, and I enjoy telling you when you're sexy."

"I know." She smiles.

"As long as we're clear on that." He smiles back.

She kisses him. He holds her waist. Breaking off to breathe, he asks.

"Do you want pancakes? I'm ready for a break, and my stomach says pancakes."

"Well, it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon, but I bought the good maple syrup last week, so why not."

"You are the best. Can we eat them cuddling on the couch?" He asks excitedly.

"We can." She says happily.

He holds her hand. They exit the workshop side by side.

Fun?


	3. Chapter 3: Poolside

**You spin me right round.**

Pepper walks out onto the deck. There is a new, massive, metres thick roof half over and half off the swimming pool. It's still unpainted and rough, but she can see how the lines of it balance well, creating a sharp glittering outline against the sky.

Pepper looks at the new pool house in amazement. "Is that a roof or a water feature?"

Tony spins around, his face lighting up when he sees Pepper. "Welcome back. It's both? Neither. It's complicated? It's kind of a battery?" He holds his hands out imploring the ether for a clear explanation.

"Is that a massive pool of battery acid?" She asks, alarmed, pointing at the glittering pool above her head.

"No, not like that." Tony assures her. "Simple kinetic energy storage. It's a rainwater tank. The water comes out of little pipes, spins a bunch of wheels, the wheels make a happy little stream of DC power to light the LEDs and the resulting waterfall. If the pool overflows, the water falls into the second tank under the deck, which stores the water until it gets lifted back up into the top tank by a very fun combination of thermal expansion, evaporation and capillary action that my physics professor would be proud of. Oh, and some cute tiny wind turbines just to speed things up." He points at all the relevant parts of the structure as he mentions them.

With a final flourish he says. "Tanks are even big enough to refill the pool entirely in case of excessive evaporation. A natural cooling system I may add."

He pushes a button on an app, and the whole thing whirrs into motion, utterly gorgeous planes of water glittering in the sun, and waving in the breeze. "Very Retro no? Like a lava lamp in reverse."

.

Pepper gapes in awe of its beauty. "You never cease to amaze me. Must be why I married you."

Tony grins and kisses her shoulder, standing behind her to enjoy the sight of it. "Thank you. Oh, and I covered the whole thing in solar film, because you need that sort of oomph to cook properly, and no-one needs a coal BBQ, a few wood chips and enough electricity can get you the same delicious taste if you know what you're doing."

.

"You're planning to cook out here?" Pepper asks skeptically. It's not that Tony can't cook, it's just that he often gets distracted by designing automated cooking systems halfway through doing so.

"Well, maybe not personally, though it's nice to have the option. You ever hear of Kenji Lopez Alt?"

"Oh my god yes. He does some amazing things with aqua faba." Pepper says.

"Well, you always wanted to try a full vegan BBQ right. He's got some amazing new techniques he wants to try on a larger audience. I was thinking of inviting all the company food nerds for a relaxing party by the pool. Vegan food, vegan booze." Tony slides her into a dancing pose.

"Vegan booze?" She asks.

"Yeah turns out them use something from fish called isinglass to clear out wines sometimes? Kenji mentioned it when I was discussing BBQ specs with him." Tony

Pepper looks incredibly excited. "You're serious?"

"Very." Says Tony.

"Tony! Thank you!" She hugs him, bouncing up and down like an excited child.

"Well what's the point of all this Summer sunshine if I can't make my wife happy with it?" Tony says, slightly smugly pleased.

She kisses him then, under the beautiful waterfall.

.

fin

.

You like this one?

.

PS: Thanks for the review JEREMY. By split book, do you mean like split title? Half the comic is Ironman, the other half Captain America for example? Sorry, before my time. But I take it as a compliment :)


	4. Chapter 4: Has a ring to it

**If you like her then you should engineer her a ring.**

Tony Stark walks up to Pepper Potts at an elegant restaurant. Fame doesn't fluster the staff at such establishments. Which is a must for nice nights out. And this is a nice night out. Pepper is wearing a professional pants-suit, silk top practically glowing in the light, jacket casually slung over the back of her seat. Already sipping on a sparkling wine and watching the view.

"You are stunning as ever." He says, and she turns and smiles at him the moment he speaks. Tony is not only not late, he is sober and well turned out with a flower in his button hole. Pepper is a sharp lady, she notices these type of things. He gives her a kiss on the cheek.

"Hi." she says. "You look good."

After settling into his seat, Tony holds up a tiny bamboo box, the smile on his face is smugly self satisfied. A second glass of the wine appears before him, momentarily interrupting his suave. "Thank you." He says to the waiter.

"It's just a little something I made you." Tony says as Pepper takes the box. He sips wine as Pepper pries it open, to see a jewelled ring lying on the plush black velvet inside.

"It's beautiful." She says, immediately intrigued by the design.

Several tiny stones cluster around a unusually cut central stone. It looks like a diamond, wide, with a curved top surface, making it's profile lower and sleeker. The band is wide, smooth. The stone is unusually dim and understated, not reflecting back much light. She puts it on."It's heavy. And subtle, why is it subtle?" She asks, immediately suspicious of the ring.

"I can't do subtle?" He asks in mock outrage. Pepper tilts her head in amusement, eyebrow raised, then silently takes another sip of wine.

"Okay. It's not super sparkly because that's solar panelling behind it. I call it a smart ring. You can call it a mood ring if you want."

"What does it do?" She asks, amused by the description.

"I love it when you ask me that. May I demonstrate?" He pauses, filled with excited anticipation.

"No lasers." She says.

"No lasers." Tony confirms, and touches a few buttons on an app. The ring springs to life with an array of colours, like tiny Christmas lights.

"As you can see, it has a collection of microscopic LEDs, the colour and pattern can communicate several things, in combination with vibration. It's mostly an information conduit from your smart watch and phone, not much processing power. But it can tell the time, give you a health status update, inform you of Wi-Fi and blue-tooth connectivity. Morse Code messages, if you're into that."

As he says these things, the ring displays different things, sparkling mutely.

"But it's the sensors in there that really give it range. It's got a light meter, an accelerometer, pulse meter and thermometer to keep an eye on things in your hand. Next level gesture based control system. And if I make your heart race it'll make hubba hubba sounds on the app. See?" He holds up the app, which is giving read-outs of all the functions he mentioned.

Seeing Pepper's dubious expression he quickly says. "There are settings."

"This does all that?" She looks at the ring again, impressed. It's big, but not that big.

"Yeah. I was looking over some samples of micro tech. I decided to see what I could make it do."

"Where's the battery for all these functions?" She wonders aloud.

"In the band. That's a little new something too. Technically it's a flexible battery, but I've caged the poor thing in titanium." He half shrugs, gesturing with his wine.

"You promise there's no weapon in it?" She asks. Tony's trinkets often had echoes of his former life as a weapons tech designer.

"You don't do weapons. This is a gift for you." He kisses her hand, big brown eyes doing their megawatt puppy dog impression.

"Then it's perfect. Thank you." She leans over and kisses him briefly.

"Would I give you anything less?" He asks, still leaning in.

"Do try to keep a lid on your ego there Mr Stark." She replies.

"Ooh. Ouch. You've always known the straightest path to my heart." They're both smiling..

"That and food. I've ordered you your favourite." She says, leaning back as their first course arrives.

Once again momentarily caught off guard, Tony turns to the wait staff and says. "I don't know what I did to deserve her, but this is the most incredible woman in the world."

"Pepper. I love you." He says, straight faced.

"It's mutual." She says smiling, picking up her cutlery.

From that point conversation turns to everyday things. Intimate details of life that are only of real interest to the ones sharing them.

Just like that, they settle into the night like the sun slipping gently below the horizon.

I'd like to say, the fact that at least one person followed this story is what's keeping me writing out these little tech ideas.

I hope you're still enjoying them. :)


	5. Chapter 5: Not that sort of solar power

Apologies, I only speak English. I hope google translate has not done me wrong. My reply is: Thank you. I really want to show Tony and Pepper being happy together. :)

 **Chapter 5: Star dust.**

It's night, the air is warm, the stars twinkling, the sound of water murmuring by the pool is interrupted only by playful sounds of conversation.

The electric barbecue party had gone well. Really well. Kenji had been a hit, both personally, and culinarily. Tony had tweaked some cooking equipment and given it to Kenji to play with, and the whole thing had been spectacular to watch, as well as eat. Now Kenji had gone, and taken most of that equipment with him as a gift for his efforts.

The lights projected over the walls had been enough decoration by themselves. There was so little trash. Pepper had been so happy when Tony told her about the environmentally friendly party plans. He understood her priorities.

Now, like the music, most of the lights are off. Most of the guests are gone. It's just quiet and relaxed and happy.

All that remains are the Australians.

There are a pair of them, their residual jet-lag meaning that they are not tired yet, despite the late hour. So Pepper and Tony sit in the pool together with them. The waterfall switched low to create a rain patter into the pool beside them. They're all tipsy and relaxed.

The Australians were rather surprised about what American Barbecue meant, they'd been expecting sausages and steaks. But they'd eaten as much as anyone, and really seemed to enjoy themselves in the familiar setting of a pool party.

Neither are wearing swim suits, having decided in easy-going Australian fashion to enter the pool in their casual clothes. Their swimwear was left behind in Australia because technically they're on a business trip to meet with Tony about an ongoing project.

They both have farmers tans, and easy smiles. James has short brown hair and one crooked tooth that makes his smile look cheeky even when it isn't. Fiona has a ponytail and a filigree tattoo of the solar system on her shoulder.

"Let me get this straight." Pepper says. "You're rocket scientists."

They both nod, straight faced. Pepper is still unsure whether to believe them. She still doesn't quite understand the Aussie sense of humour, and she was absolutely convinced about drop bears once many years ago, to her embarrassment.

Besides, they look nothing like Pepper's mental image of rocket scientists. Though that's been true of many rocket scientists she's met in her job. But the air of casual camaraderie and outlandish recounting of what they did for a living made her suspicious...

She decides Tony unlikely to be in on any joke they might be making, so she asks for confirmation.

"You've been hiring them to send rockets into orbit, by driving a semi-trailer to.. Woop-woop?

"West of Woop-woop." Finona chips in.

"Which is beyond the Black Stump." Pepper continues.

"Yes." They both say, smiling.

"You're getting it." James grins.

"So you just drive out into the middle of nowhere and launch rockets." Pepper says, still rather amazed/

"Why?" She asks of Tony.

"Helium." Tony says. He ducks his head to the side.

"Radioactive Helium." Fiona clarifies.

"Is this like the drop bears?" She turns to face Tony. "Are they making this up?"

"Are you making this up?" She follows up.

James grins "No. We're a space flight start-up. Cut our teeth on low orbit weather satellites and software."

"We specialise in hybrid fuel rockets. It lets us be a little more precise, have a little more flexibility when it comes to atmospheric conditions. Tony's funding really took us to the next level." James says, enthusiastically.

"But why Queensland? Why not Sydney or something?" She asks.

"Lot of advantages. No flight paths out West. Half as many satellite orbits to avoid. Hardly any wet weather."

"We have huge launch windows. Tony sends us the payload and we just flip it up through the magnetosphere for a couple of hundred orbits, and bring it back down through the same gap in the sky with a nice soft landing, and go collect it from someone's back paddock." Says Fiona.

"Tony's been giving us access to some great physics modelling software to test out our new soft landings. And it's so much cheaper to retrieve stuff by 4 wheel drive instead of boat."

"Plus international waters permits are a bastard to organise." Says Fiona.

"We are not shitting you." James says. 

"Translate." Pepper says to Tony.

"They're serious." Tony says. He asked them to have a relaxed working relationship from the very start, and it's lead to learning a lot of slang from them.

"It's been really interesting working together." Fiona says. "Getting the helium to stick was relatively simple, it's all to do with electrostatic cling that forms on various materials when they're bombarded by the solar wind. "

"The hard bit was getting it to stay on there during re-entry. There's a lot of vibration, and helium isn't known for staying where it's put. Turns out there's a dual component glue that can be used to seal the canister we wrap the film in."

"Tony's the one who has to collect usable amounts of it once it's landed. That's not our area."

"That's amazing. Is this real?" Pepper asks.

"Sure is." Tony says, clinking glasses with the pair of Aussies, proud of their combined work.

"Yes. Tony has really been getting us to scoop some radioactive sun poop." Fiona says.

The conversation never did get back to being serious after that comment.

...

As Pepper towels herself off later, she realises something missing from her understanding.

"Tony." She says. He looks at her attentively.

"What's the Helium for?"

Tony matter of factly answers. "Experimenting with small scale nuclear power. Moveable units. Can't melt-down, can't be used for weapons. Can't run out of power."

"So if you're successful, you'll what, send up a thousand of these satellites?"

"If it works, I'll set up a mine on the Moon."

"Mining on the Moon?" she says flatly.

"With robots." He adds.

"Tony... life with you is never dull. You know that?" She say, leaning her head on him.

"I do. I'm hoping if I keep surprising you with my brilliance, you'll never get bored of me."

"By collecting radioactive Sun poop." She says, arms around him, head falling backwards.

He grins and kisses her. "Precisely."

–

The scientists are based on a real company: Gilmore Space Corporation. Look them up. It's pretty cool.


	6. Chapter 6: Sunshine discipline

Dear reader: Cute Tony is my favourite Tony. :)

 **Sunshine discipline**

Pepper is in her office, having some quiet time, catching up on tech news and having a stretch. Her shoes are off, and her hair down. The Sun is making patterns along the window edge of her office floor.

The calm is broken by her office phone. It's Tony's ring tone.

"Answer." She says, enunciating clearly for the machine. It beeps to signal the line is open.

"Hi Tony, what's up?" She asks, still looking over articles absently.

"Pepper?" Tony's voice through the phone sounds concerned. Like he's not sure how to put his trouble into words.

"Yes Tony?" Pepper asks, fondly.

"Why are half my favourite materials not on the standard requisition list any more?" His tone is halfway between accusatory and worried.

"Stark Industries doesn't buy from vendors that use fossil fuels any more. There was a memo. We're 100% fossil fuel free as of next year." Pepper replies evenly. She was half expecting this call.

"How can I make cool stuff if I don't have the materials for it?" Tony says in disbelief.

"Did you hear the words that just came out of your mouth?" Pepper says, waiting for the idea to dawn.

There's a pause of maybe half a second.

"So you're saying I need to adapt my plans to what I have, or figure out how to make my own fossil fuel free version?" He says, his voice slowly filling with the enthusiasm of an engineer given an interesting puzzle to solve.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. You have budget, that was part of the memo too." There's a smile in her voice and on her face.

"You may be the sexiest entity in the entire galaxy." Tony says, overwhelmed with excitement. It sounds like hyperbole, but it isn't in his eyes.

"Is that your way of saying you accept my executive directive?" Pepper asks.

"Yes ma-am." He says with conviction.

"That's all you needed?" She asks, going back to having a stretch and a wander around her office.

"That's all. Yes, thank you." Tony says, obviously excited.

"Good. See you at home?" She asks, though she's sure he won't leave the workshop until he hears her enter the house.

"Please come early." He says, his voice smooth as warm massage oil.

"Tony." She says warningly.

"Too much innuendo?" He asks cheekily.

"Just a little." She says.

"I shall factor that into my calculations. Love you." He says, signing off, ready to go innovate.

"I love you too Tony." She says.

Tony makes a kissing noise and closes the line.

The office is silent again. Then Pepper sits down in her chair, and laughs with joy. Tony has always been incredibly charismatic and charming. But now his charm is used to make her happy.

…

We all need more sunshine in our lives.


	7. Chapter 7: Driving on Sunshine

Reply: Sign up! It's free :)

 **I'm driving on Sunshine.**

Pepper walks into the garage, clicking as she strides. All business suit and briefcase, make-up simple but sharp. Her heels are low and sleek, with the heel itself apparently made out of space-age metals. Tony stops everything he's doing just to watch her walk.

"See you after work. I'm having a working lunch." Pepper says, stepping up to where Tony was fiddling with a random piece of tech on the wall of the garage.

"You're off?" Tony asks. They share a peck on the cheek.

"Take this. Give Happy a day off." Tony says, gesturing at the apparently large opalescent surrealist sculpture behind him. Black on top with layers of different colours stacked like sedimentary rock, but with colours similar quartz or pearl shell. It has beautiful lines carved into in, curves swoop and dip interestingly over it, but mostly it looks like a very large and pretty river rock.

"What do you mean take this? What is this?" She walks along the side of the vaguely cube shaped object, wondering why Tony wants her to take it with her. "Is this by that new artist you've been telling me about? Weng Li-shu was it?"

"It's a car." Tony says simply, doing his 'I'm such a genius' strut over to the side of the 'car'.

"A car? This is a car?" Pepper looks at the fancy looking plastic box again in confusion. There are no visible wheels, windows, lights or even side mirrors. "You made me a car?" She points at it. Her tone indicates nominal happiness, but much deeper confusion.

Tony shrugs a shoulder, faux self-deprecating. "Look, I have a fetish for tiny controlled explosions to generate torque. But I get your priorities, so I made you this."

"This is an electric car?" Pepper still sounds somewhat sceptical. "How.. no. First, Why?"

"Couple of reasons. One it's nice for a businesswoman of your stature to have a signature personal vehicle, so it's for you and maximum one passenger. Because: Two, parking is horrible around here, and this can park anywhere. Three, I've been trying out a few of my new techniques to make it smaller, lighter, safer. Get a better weight to speed ratio."

"I appreciate that." Pepper stops running her hand over it. "It's just... The only part of it that I can tell is a car are the number plates." She says delicately, because it's not a criticism as such...

"Oh sorry. Put this bangle on," He holds out a jewellery box and takes her briefcase. "And put your hand here." Tony points to a subtly shiny circle on what's presumably the hood.

"Oh this is lovely." Pepper says as Tony puts the matching bracelet on her. The understated pearly strap is the setting for a black crystal that turns out to actually be a small screen.

"So I touch.." Pepper steps up close to the car "Here?" Hesitantly Pepper puts her hand on the roof.

It springs to life, and she shrinks back in shock despite herself. Most of the upper half of the car goes transparent, and the side mirrors extrude outwards and pop into a aerodynamic shape. A door unseals itself on the near side of the car, opening just enough to allow room for her to pull it open, there are no door handles as such. The wheel covers slide upwards.

The insides are as subtle and beautiful as the outsides.

"You've done a lot of work on this." Pepper says, impressed.

"Signature car." Tony says by way of explanation, smirking. "And I've added some innovative crumple zone technology. I borrowed some techniques from the field of compliant mechanisms."

"Compliant with what? EU safety standards?" Pepper guesses, lost again. She hops in. The car chimes quietly and various parts of the dash light up.

"Compliant as in they are bendable." Tony explains. "The idea is that after a minor or even moderate crash, the structure bends and locks into a smaller cage of protection." Tony makes illustrative gestures with his hands.

" Afterwards, you can just pop it back into place at the stress points. No jaws of life required. Some components need a bit of an electric current to get reseated, but the shock absorption gradient on this is just so beautiful. I know it's a bit like that science class where you dropped an egg off a building, but I seriously spent at least a day just watching the crash algorithms in the simulator. The battery gives it such a low centre of gravity." He pats the car. "This little drop of sunshine is a feat of engineering. A fleet of feats of engineering." He enthuses lyrically, his eyes continuing to sparkle as he watches her takes in all the little luxuries and technologies he's packed into this.

"Good rear view, no blind spot." Says Pepper, strapping herself in with what looks a little like a race-car webbing. "And this seat is so comfy."

"And cradles your spine in a crash like an all-star catching a winning touchdown." He sees her looking at all the dash options. "All the usual perks. Parking cameras. Proximity braking. Low-jack.'

"How does this fit in?" Pepper holds up the wrist with the bracelet.

"The bangle is a cross between a blue-tooth fob and a GPS, a little smarter security-wise than your average key. The car won't start unless you're inside and wearing it." Tony explains.

"Handy. Better not lose it." She says.

Tony shakes his head a little. "Don't worry, it'll talk to your phone if you leave it behind anywhere but its charging cradle."

He taps the bracelet. "My favourite optional extra with that is once we get government approval for the self-driving protocols, you'll be able to use the bracelet as an auto-valet function. Tell the car to park itself, get it to come when you call. That sort of thing. This is a car just for you, not some random lackey."

Pepper gapes in awe for a moment at what the implies about advances in self-driving technology as a business aspect of Stark Industries. She files it away for later discussion.

"You won't ever need a key so long as you don't change your thumbprint." He points at the start button. "You can grant other people temporary access. But this is yours and yours alone."

"This is really thoughtful idea. I'll never have to worry about leaving company secrets in the car. Thank you Tony." She kisses him as he climbs into the passenger seat.

"Oh, and the roof is solar." He points at the relevant read-out on the dash. "More of that multi layer film I was working with before. It won't power the car as such, but it will keep all the active systems ticking over so you won't ever run out of batteries, or get into a hot or cold car. Sorry. Are you going to be late?"

"Oh yes." Pepper takes a deep breath and presses the start button to get going. "The engine's so smooth." She approves.

"And it smells like flowers?" She asks, distracted from the quietness of the engine.

"You like flowers." He points into the boot. She looks back.

"You got me flowers too?" She turns back to him.

"I couldn't hand you an empty car." He says, smoothly.

Pepper tries to hug Tony.. the seat belt holds her back awkwardly. Neither minds. They both cuddle happily if uncomfortably.

This was the reaction he was hoping for. She practically squeals in delight and amusement at her own awkwardness, kissing Tony on the cheek and ear repeatedly, enthusiastically and without thought of precision.

"Do you want to come on my maiden voyage?" Pepper asks excitedly.

Tony smiles in utter pleasure. "I have time. I will, however, tell you a lot about how to drive it. In general, not specific." Tony assures. He tries not to be a back-seat driver. Especially when there's no back seat.

"I can deal with that." Pepper says, smiling happily.

Tony puts her briefcase in the back and buckles up. With an artificially generated purr of the almost silent engine, Pepper pulls the car out into traffic, ready to hear many, many more facts about the car as they go.

–

Soo.. does this look anything like your dream car? Not mine so much, I'm not a CEO on the go. But it is my idea of what a signature car should be.


	8. Chapter 8: Eating up sunshine

**Metabolised sunshine.**

Tony steps into Pepper's office, complimenting Pepper's PA charmingly on the way in. Pepper barely looks up. As the door shuts behind him, Tony cocks his head to the side, taking in the situation. Pepper's brow is furrowed. He tosses a ball of plastic in the air repeatedly as he walks over to the desk. The only sound is the tapping of keys on Pepper's keyboard.

He kisses her on the top of her head. "You look busy, you need to delay lunch? I can wait outside."

"Almost done." She says, distractedly.

He looks out the window at the various goings on in the world, still playing with what looks like a plastic baseball. With a final few clicks, she sends the email, and puffs out a breath releasing tension.

"How's your day been?" She asks.

"Good. I've found a cool thing." He says mysteriously.

"Found what?" Pepper asks.

"Well.. there was this little start-up. Looked promising. I had some of their more interesting cultivars sent through the labs to see what sort of polymers we could cook out of it." Tony explains excitedly, not adding context for clarity.

"Cultivars?" Pepper says, looking at the object Tony is holding, hoping for answers. It's shiny like vacu-formed plastic.

"This is one of the things I made with the outcome." He concludes handing it to her. It's a little globe, continents etched delicately into the surface.

"Geez that is solid." Pepper says.

"Made from algae lipids." Tony says.

"This is bioplastic?" Pepper asks.

Tony nods. "Isn't it good? Tensile strength of polycarbonate, and grows five times the oil mass as corn can in the same area, with a fraction of the fertiliser" Tony dips his head to the side ruefully and pulls a face. "Though that's not hard. The only reason corn is competitive as anything other than food is government subsidies."

"So by cultivars you mean genetically engineered algae?" Pepper says. Catching up on context.

"Yes. It's so cool. I'm also working on one that makes polymers we can use in that new 3D printer I've been playing with."

"That sounds good, I hear the development lab could do with a quicker prototype maker."

Tony continues. "There's a third strain that is an amazing air filter. The polymers are." He half-shrugs "Decent, but the magic part is that it removes xylene and ammonia like you wouldn't believe." Tony continues. "Perfect for industrial applications. Synergy and all that."

"This is a pitch for buying the start-up you found." Pepper states. Narrowing her eyes at him.

Tony does his best puppy-dog eyes. It only half work because he looks so mischievous.

"Will you forgive me if I actually take you to lunch now? There's an amazing little Korean place that does Dol-sot Bi-bim-bap where the sunny side up egg looks like a Spring day dawning and they make all their own pickles."

"Sounds good." She kisses him, and they start to leave the room.

"But write down your proposal properly, in an email and cc in Langstrop and Dr Lu. And I'm in the middle of trying to negotiate a restructure of suppliers still, it's messy. So no more start-ups, at least until the end of the month."

"Your wish is my command." Tony says, letting the door close behind them both. The globe remains on her desk, full of promise.

–

fin.


End file.
